The digital, solid-state cameras are rapidly replacing the traditional analog cameras. Prices have come down to a mass-market level and features, unheard of in the conventional analog domain, are being added to give the user ever more control over the capturing process and the quality of the end-result. Currently, digital cameras are commercially available that have been designed for connecting to a PC in order to transfer image files. These files can include still image files (e.g., JPEG files) as well as motion video files (e.g., QuickTime files). Such a digital camera captures digital still images and motion video segments and stores the images using, e.g., Flash EPROM memory. Digital cameras also are increasingly more frequently integrated with other appliances. Devices such as mobile phones currently come equipped with camera chips as a standard feature. Market reports estimate that in 2002 about 20 million (20M) so-called “camera phones” were sold worldwide. The embedded digital camera enables to instantly share a snapshot with a remote party. A similar trend of designed-in camera chips has appeared in the PDA market. Solid-state cameras thus have become a commodity in the consumer electronics (CE) environment, i.e., the mass market, wherein brand owners try to distinguish their products by means of attractive features providing additional functionality.
An example of the above is discussed in US patent application publication 20030095193. This reference discloses creating a panoramic digital image by providing a digital camera having a memory and which is operable in a first mode for producing individual still digital images, and in a second mode for capturing a series of overlapping digital images to be used in constructing the panoramic digital image. The digital camera is mounted on a stand, rotated on the stand through a series of predetermined positions, and operated in the second mode to capture the series of overlapping digital images. The series of overlapping digital images corresponding to the panoramic digital image is stored in a predetermined location in the memory, and processed to stitch such images together to produce the panoramic digital image.